16-1 Degas can prove himself the master at Chantilly

As we saw at Newmarket in recent days, Flat racing looks totally different on fast ground. It’s not better or worse than when it’s soft, but speed rather than stamina obviously becomes more important and sometimes the best way into any race is to concentrate on the pedigrees.

On the July course, the sire War Front had a great week with the likes of Roly Poly and Intelligence Cross improving markedly on their soft-ground form, and punters sometimes look at all sorts of variables when trying to find a way into any race but tend not to care too much about pedigrees.

We all look for horses who have been drawn badly last time, or horses who are doing something different, whether it be changing trip or jockey, and we will look through the form to see what ground preference a horse may have. However, we tend to be slower to look at the pedigree and that is especially important for inexperienced horses who haven’t run that often.